Challenge Accepted.

In no time, a fury of vendors, contacts, and talent come rushing into our lives like we had just inherited a family of circus folk. Being a natural ringleader, Nonee Kay took the reighs of the nearest elephant and lead the team into the tent for a “Black Swan” themed extravaganza of an evening.

All of this goes without saying that, with only a week to get organized, seeing the historic Cathedral of St. Vibiana of Downtown Los Angeles light up with spectacular production and fill with people gathered together for a righteous cause, was completely worth the lack of sleep and borderline insanity (otherwise known as utter genius).

You can check out the spectacle too! Did we mention Jamie Foxx was in the house?

From the look of our spread, we had a royal flush. The lighting set the perfect tone for the evening with hues of red and gold. Frank Sinatra added charm and class to the vibe. The buffets were simply irresistable; featuring breads, cheeses, spreads, and to-die-for desserts. They taunted and teased guests into savoring their companionship, like a burlesque dancer whose moves cause involuntary drooling. We found these tables surrounded for the whole evening and were only able to pry people away by enticing them with our savory passed appetizers.

From lamb lollipops to spicy miso shrimp, every plate that was sent out came back as though someone could have licked it clean. By the end of the evening no one could keep their poker face straight, it was satisfied smiles all around.

Want to see what our poker face looks like? Check out the Sex Gallery.

Last year’s Lady Gaga inspired event was a total rager and inspired the rest of our summer with eccentricity and bold inspiration.

This year we tried something different. Something that suggested a more laid back approach to what this summer was going to be all about. The perfect day to hang out in the garden and kick back with good food, good drinks, and, most importantly, a good team of friends and human beings. We think this is the true formula to happiness. Enough of any  of those three things could only mean laughter and good energy flowing even after the party ends. We will always be looking forward to next May to work with the lovely folks at Dermalogica because of this.

Instead of taking summer by storm, we decided we would take a stroll through the garden and have a glass of wine with it.

Get in deeper and check out the photos of this particular afternoon & evening at the Sex Gallery.

It goes a little something like this. We fed savory dishes (potato & sausage station, pasta & meatball kitchen, olive bar), decorating (flowers, props, furniture), designing (floor planning, theme building) and staffing (cooks, servers, character actors, coordinator, hosts, vip services) & supplying the wonderful vendors who danced, photo-boothed, sweet toothed and boozed everybody up – all night. But don’t take our word for it. Checkout the photos that our very own Eduard Gabrielyan of TorinoCreative.com took all night.

NOTE: Near the end of the party (just moments ago), I swung out the club with my MacBookPro & a Canon 5D full of photos, to post (here) some of my favorite photos from the night…

Light posts, crates, lagers, oil drums. You name it. We brought what we could to remake the Atlantic City Boardwalk vibe right here in the walls of Exchange LA’s “eclectic meets ultra-modern” style.  With the help of some candles and rustic high tables, the main floor went from feeling like a dance floor, to a planked pier.

In the background, hair and makeup by our very own Blonde Doctor (Christopher Enlow, Angus Mitchell Salon) & crew.

S0 how about the food? Olive Bar upstairs (in the casino) featuring bulgarian feta cheese, colossal kalamata olives, roasted baby zucchini, fresh grape tomatoes accompanied by various artisans breads. Less is more.

Cousin Leo spreading his aunty’s spaghetti and meatballs. As uncle Ed caused a ruckus, greeting old friends and messing with grandma’s old recipe. Italian basil pesto sauces, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted peppers & fresh block shaved parmesan topped by pomegranate + balsamic reductions.

And of course, who could forget the sweets? An entire room full actually – at the “High Roller Sweet” downstairs in the EXLA art gallery. From Cheesecake poppers to fried donuts and coffee. This room was the place to hang out in for  sugar bliss.

Hyped and ready to rock, the crowd continued to eat, drink and eventually…

DANCE!!!!

Best of all, our K12 husband and wife team Mary and Alex Kay proving capable of more than just moral support, by jumping behind the sausage station (& taring it up thoroughly) during Yelper Rush Hour.

Who’s to forget of course, our shwag table, featuring last year’s switch the addition campaign along with cards that directed yelpers to this blog post.

Well. That’s the highlight reel. Big ups to all the amazing people that did their part to make this event such a success. And a special thanks to Katie B. and all those at Yelp Corporate for trusting us to be in control of the party. Yelp loves us, and we love Yelp. Now on to the next one. We got events to cater all summer. Keep up with us at Facebook.com/Kitchen12000 & Twitter.com/Kitchen12000 – video of event’s setup and execution to come.

BTW – we’re always looking for great people to join our team of party planners, so if you think you got what it takes to keep up with us, contact luana@kitchen12000.com to setup a phone interview.

“Planet earth, is the greatest venue in the universe (I think).” -Michael Kay (K12 Janitor)

Talk about an awesome experience. To be along side of David Tutera and his amazing production team was an absolute honor. Not to mention a KILLER PARTY. We started the night off with our Hierloom Stack, featuring Tomato, Watermelon, Goat Cheese, Baslemic Reduction, Walnut Oil & Micro Mix.

The rest was history. To learn more about Mr. Tutera and his awesomeness, checkout DavidTutera.com

Look for Episode 1 of Season 4 on iTunes to view the show.

We had DJ Killer Queen sporting our very own recreation of the Lady Gaga bubble outfit as she spun behind an ivory white grand piano on top of the dance-floor’s secondary DJ platform. By the end of the night, half the party had spent some time or another on top of the piano dancing as if it were 1969.

What was approached as a simple house party for guests to “mix and mingle” turned into an all female rave environment, leaving our buffet stations (almost) untouched while Dermalistas crowded the dance floor throughout the night. Shit was off the hook – honestly.

Starting with a little passed appetizers and dessert session at 6 PM, the ladies came dressed to impress, rocking endless variations of the Lady Gaga brand.

We had our brand new plexi-lit dessert stations rocking white/black/blue/red sweetness from our friends over at Essential Chocolate Desserts in Culver City. “I wan’t 4 colors, and 4 colors only Melissa. Keep it all Gaga.”

Floral arrangements designed by Gardenia Flower Art in Glendale, CA compliments the overall design aesthetic of the party. We’re talking white/red/blue/black on glass, mirrors & ceramics. The fellows at GFA straight killed it as usual.

Highback lounge environments spread through the over 5,000 square foot backyard made for great rest and relaxtion zones during the almost 12 full seconds that the entire party was not on the dance floor. I’m serious folks, these ladies did not stop dancing. It was f**king AWESOME!

Our Lady Gaga back-up dancer look-alike waiters made sure the ladies had all they wanted. Drinks, food, erotic dancing sessions…

Big ups to our main man Steve Scherer for keeping everybody fed. This guy had to nourish these ladies for 5 days straight. Which meant he had to wrap up his work at the party, and head home to catch like 1 hour of sleep before he got back on the grind the next morning. Mad props to our big guy.

Our homegirl thoroughly killed it. From the look, to the grove and the non-stop banging beats – our Killer Queen put it down in the city.

Make-up? More like 4 artists painting 15 K12ers in 6 hours before they themselves got into character to bust-a-move during the party too. Lead artist Nate preps fellow comrade here before show time.

Usually working security, our very own Edgar Abramyan took the stage per request, shirtless and on a prowl. His late night strip show in the charter bus had the ladies going crazy in the middle of classy/quiet Brentwood California. Good work my man.

Costume design by Nonee Alex Kay had each person in character within seconds. This young man played the “I’m so hot, I can’t even smile” persona. Really well too…

Did I mention we had over 1,000 pieces of bite sized desserts? Okay, just making sure.

Oh, and while the edible stations become secondary behind all of the dancing and entertainment, drunken munching definitely took place throughout the end of the night. Don’t worry, none of this stuff went to waste.

While these photos are great, you really had to be there. Well, maybe next year. Cuz from the sounds of it, it looks like Dermalogica isn’t going to be looking for another catering crew for a long time.

“In 17 years of putting this series of events together, we have never had anyone even come close to what you folks did for us this week. Kitchen12000 is amazing.” -Pretty Much Everyone at Dermalogica

Many thanks to the Dermalogica’s executives for allowing us to spotlight our arsenal of awesomeness.

So when Porsche asked us to coordinate the Panamera North American launch (in Beverly Hills) of their first 4-Door Sedan, the Panamera – we were like “holly s**t, hell yeah. Are you kidding me?” And then when we found out that we out-competed Wolfgang Puck’s Cateringcrew to get the job, we were like “holly s**t, hell yeah. Are you kidding me?” Enough said, checkout the photos.

3 Bars setup outside, 1 serving red+white wines, another dishing out all sorts of Tequila cocktail variations and of course a non-alcoholic bar with all types of fresh juices, sodas and agua. “You turned our parking lot into a freaking club!”

The standard, S and Turbo Panamera vehicles were featured inside the dealership, where we had ladies passing out bite sized appetizers and cocktails for all of the 500+ guests. The event was invite only, to Porsche owners, friends and family. All three sold that night, btw.

The smoked salmon blinis were a hit apparently. Oh, and from the reviews on Yelp, it appears the bacon wrapped gorgonzola dates and pork belly satays didn’t do that bath either But honestly, anything tastes good when it comes served by pretty ladies such as Whitney here. Truth be told…

Curried chicken salad shooters with hearts of palm, toasted+shaved coconut & micro arugula – special request from the big man at BevHillsPorsche.

Smoked scottish salmon over a potato blini, featuring a lemon-lime creme fresh & micro chives. Goodnight.

Pretty ladies, young chefs, porsche enthusiasts, great food, killer tunes, endless alcohol & brand spanking new 4-Door Porsche sedans to stare at all night. Yeah, tough times in Beverly Hills that night

Read below what BevHills Porsche representative Jay Huffschmidt had to say about our efforts on Yelp.com.

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Mid October of 2009 Porsche planned the United States debut of its first four door sedan, a festively named rocket ship know as the Panamera. Beverly Hills Porsche had the pleasure and duty to help with the Los Angeles unveiling. It’s been quite a while since I’ve organized such an important event and with ever shrinking marketing budgets I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the idea of pulling off something as big as this.

I started calling in favors form friends in the event planning business. It didn’t take long to realize things could very easily get out of hand and go terribly over budget. I started to put the word out that I needed something special yet affordable and after a few stellar recommendations and a bucket load of due diligence I decided to contact Michael Kay form Kitchen 12000.

Originally I was only looking for a catering company that could handle the food and beverage service. I thought I had the rest of the bases covered. However after meeting with Michael I decided to let his mad genius take over the better part of my event. We decided to call the project Viva Panamera! Michael sourced a top notch DJ, a crew of professional photographers and a crack security team. His Kitchen 12000 chefs, servers and bar staff had already established a great reputation and became the corner stone of this project.

The 24 hours leading up to an event is always the most stressful. Michael and his staff kept re assuring me that this was going to be an experience that my guests would not soon forget. The stress kept building as the event grew nearer. Several of the key components that I had been working on started to fall apart and of course the torrential rains moved in. Michael worked with me on a contingency work around just incase the rain forced the event indoors. He also offered to pick up some of the slack my other vendors were hanging me up with. Looking back K-12000 got 80% of my budget and did 110% of the work. Next time I write one check and let them do it all.

The Panamera launch was a qualified success! Mother Nature moved the rain clouds to the east, the sun dried off the grounds and Kitchen12000 brought their A-game. The K-12′ers arrived and Beverly Hills Porsche underwent a transformation from car lot to night club. Everything looked amazing! The red carpet style entry with paparazzi press wall impressed. The flowers, candles, tables, bars and DJ booth all worked their magic to create the right mood. When the food came out my guests were truly impressed. I had a few people tell me over and over again how much they loved the prosciutto wrapped dates unless that was just the little voices in my head. From beginning to end everything went off as planned with one exception. I didn’t budget enough for booze. Thankfully Michael came to the rescue and had some emergency bottles delivered to save my skin.

I applaud Michael Kay and the outstanding performance by the entire Kitchen12000 team. Viva Panamera! I’ve posted pictures of the event to my Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/…

I can’t wait for the next excuse to throw a party using K-12000!

Their original suggestions were for us to serve cotton candy, whipped cream and other “airy” foods, along with putting up some balloons and stuff. We instead, came up with the AIR12000 campaign, and airport inspired party environment designed, catered and executed by Kitchen12000. Check it out…

So we had our cocktail waitresses dressed in custom A12K flight attendant gear as DJ Armen Abajian was decked in a full A12K captain outfit. Armen spun the hottest in electro house & progressive music from his cockpit style stage setup in front of 144″ projection screen. The video featured the prospective of a flight captain flying through blue skies and clouds. It was f**king rad. He straight killed it on the 1s and 2s as expected from the Minister of Sound.

Our AIR12000 Fly High campaign was conjured by parent company Black Garlic Creative. The graphic design execution was through Torino, featuring a complete family of unique Airport Brands, ranging from a Package Claim Station, “Sue Vaneer” booth, Coffee Clinic, I <3 Pho King bar, and Killer Kabob Express setup. Think of an Airport whose purpose it is to get you ready to fly high into party land. No seat-belts required here…

Make-up and hair for all the boys and girls came compliments of Katy Sah and Ms. Teal. Trust that everyone looked quite hot…

The plexi-glass runway streaked through the patio, between chairs (setup as they would be in first class of any charter airplane). Ladies pushed Air12000 food/drink carts up and down the runway, serving guests packaged A12K “airplane” food (Braised Short Ribs, Blue Cheese Bacon Smashed Potatoes & Steamed Green Beans with Champagne Butter Sauce). It made for quite a show. Straight up…

So instead of having the classic coffee and cookie airport booth, we went with a “Coffee Clinic” concept. Assuming coffee was an illegal drug (versus a legal one as it is now) we served coffee as would a coffee healing center. Filtered coffee, un-filtered coffee, coffee brownies + crisps & even 1/8 oz and 1/4 oz prescription bottles of coffee (as seen above). The “legalize it” campaign subliminally hinted the theme throughout all articles at the station.

The unfiltered coffee (whose potency was the highest) was an absolute hit. It played the role of master kush for the night.

Rastaman Nick Joseph educated guests on how and when to use the various coffee products. Fly high, that’s the motto.

Over 1,500 guests came through the spot, rounded the stations, and sampled all that Air12000 had to offer. People we’re tripping, asking “what is this? I don’t get it.” A good sign, as we see it.

Lady Meline performed endless life vest safety performances in a G-Rated Stripper/Gogo Dancer fashion – all while shining the brightest in brite-whites.

I mean s**t, we had our flight attendants putting on a show all night.

Catwalk style…over and over. Sometimes with food, other times with drinks, and most of the time – just strutting their stuff.

And of course, showing the highest level of respect to our captain at the DJ Booth, whose noble efforts took our guests from walking into our spot in shock, to staying way past their bed-time. “We don’t want to leave,” was our top compliment. But thanks to our friends at JLounge (who had trouble swallowing the fact that we stole the show) our outdoor area got closed down early, so that guests could actually go inside the venue – which was ghost town for most the night. Two thumbs (and big-toes) down to JLounge for being wack like that. Anyway, we took it in stride. On to the next one…

A kiss goodbye. Air12000 was a one time effort specifically designed for our friends at Yelp. K12 = Never duplicate, sometimes re-create, always innovate.

Visit Air12000.com for more photos and a step by step creative timeline for the party’s inception.

To see what they think about us on Yelp, checkout our profile – http://www.yelp.com/biz/kitchen12000-glendale

Alright well this is less of a recipe and more of a system – if that makes any sense. What I mean is, the components of this dish are considered classics, with different “recipe like” variations – so versus breaking down how much salt, pepper, herbs or blah blah blah go into this dish, I’d prefer explaining it’s unique presentation.

Did I mention that I am Armenian? No, well check it out, as far as “being Armenian” conversations go, I can go on tangents forever, remnant of lines hugging a sine curve in a calculus math problem. But in this case what you need to know is that Armenians throw huge weddings, & at these events are TONS OF FOOD, from pickled veggies to salads & BBQed kabobs to whole fried fish. I love it & hate it at the same time. Why? Cuz I’m sick of the same old stuff over & over. So here I have combined certain elements of the Armenian Wedding table & put them on one plate – strategically. 3 kinds of shish kabob over pita bread (pork, chicken, beef), a yogurt dip (commonly known as tdzadziki), a typical greek style veggie salad, roasted potatoes, fresh herbs, and of course, a shot of whiskey. Does that count as a recipe? Oh well, it does to me.

Recipe and photo graciously provided by Nick Mouradian of the Original Kabob Factory.

1. How would you define your cuisine? Post modern minimalism sugar coated by classic French refinement.

2. What inspires you when designing a menu?: Society. Our food reflects the life and times of human beings roaming the vast lands of planet earth. Past, present and future.

3. What is your specialty/signature dish?: The Magical Mushroom

4.Education/Work Experience: From Le Cordon Bleu in Pasadena to CIA in New York, our staff embodies prestige, style, grace and most of all FUNK.

5. Favorite local purveyors, and why? Like any good parent towards a child, we donít play favorites. Come one, come all.

6. Whatís your favorite food? See question 5.

7. What kitchen tool do you find invaluable? The computer, without which we have limited opportunity to propagate our movement.

8. What kind of dining experience do you offer guests? The unforgettable kind, combining food, service, design and everything in between to propel the vibe commonly referred to us Kitchen120000.

9. What made you want to be a chef? Life did. We did not choose this path, it chose us.

10. Please list the name you would like printed above your profile and how you would like your name to appear: Kitchen12000 – Join the Revolution